5 ms·

Well right, because they can kick out students who are disruptive and make them the public school systems problem. When the public school system becomes insolve

by tw04 5y ago

Well right, because they can kick out students who are disruptive and make them the public school systems problem. When the public school system becomes insolvent, what’s your solution for those students? They just don’t get an education? We hope someone else has a solution? Vouchers are a great way to permanently cement the cradle to prison cycle.

throwaway894345 5y ago
Why should disruptive students be tolerated in public school classrooms? Does the disruptive student actually get an education simply by virtue of being in the classroom? He certainly drags his peers down, but how much is he actually educated in the process, and is that worth the harm he does his peers? > Vouchers are a great way to permanently cement the cradle to prison cycle. I could as easily say they are a way out of the cradle to prison cycle for many at risk youths.
mlyle 5y ago
Perhaps any voucher system could be calibrated to: A) allow some more students to go to private schools by providing a fraction of what would be spent on them, and B) increase remaining resources per-pupil in the public school system. Of course, it still takes thought to make sure that the public schools improve in this scenario, because they will also be fighting an adverse-selection headwind of being stuck with students from lower classes and those that the private schools don't want. But if you can shrink classes and cater classes to similar ability levels, I'd think this would win out.
- bruce511 5y ago
  I'm not sure your math works. If the goal of vouchers is to take the total education budget, divide it by the number of students, then disperse the pot equally. In other words is it simply a case of $10 000 per child per year, so here's a voucher for 10k, go wherever you like? There are no extra resources here for underperforming schools - in fact there are likely fewer resources. Public shools won't get smaller though, they'll just merge together to create fewer schools, and the bad teachers will go away. And perhaps therein lies the root of the resistance to vouchers. It starts to measure school, and by extension, teacher quality. And that's not a rabbit hole teacher unions want to go down.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    > In other words is it simply a case of $10 000 per child per year, so here's a voucher for 10k, go wherever you like? When vouchers were proposed in California in 1993, it was to be half the amount spent by the state on each child for public education. In 2000, it was to be $4000/year, when the state spent about $7000/year per student. Of course, there's the big existing population in private schools that would also have been eligible for vouchers-- about 7%-- so these amounts probably still would drive down per-pupil spending in public schools. You'd need to roughly double private school enrollment to "break even" in per-pupil spending. I favor something like 20-33%-- that might reasonably be expected to both make it significantly easier for parents to send their children to private schools and increase resources per student in public schools.
nitrogen 5y ago
Vouchers are a great way to permanently cement the cradle to prison cycle. You don't solve a problem by making it worse. Making smart and/or motivated kids stay in the same classrooms as disruptive and demotivated kids just turns the motivated kids into more disruptive and demotivated kids. Right now it looks like we can choose between some people getting educated, and almost nobody getting educated because of the disruptive environment.
pdonis 5y ago
> what’s your solution for those students? They just don’t get an education? You want the brutal truth? Yes, that's exactly the solution. Want an education? Learn to behave in class. And note that this is the only workable answer even in public school systems that aren't insolvent. No amount of money can educate a kid who refuses to be educated.
- pjerem 5y ago
  > Learn to behave in class. Who’s the job to teach those kids how to behave in class ? Their parents ? And what do you do if their parents don’t care (which is the common case with those kids) ? What do you do if the student has undiagnosed mental illness ? Entire generations of misbehaved children were in fact suffering ADHD. How do you manage a misbehaving children that is bullied every single morning when he comes to school ? Not educating a kid is ruining its life and, since you speak with « brutal truth », yeah, just sentence those students to jail for life already, at least they’ll not have to struggle with hunger and homelessness during years.
  - concordDance 5y ago
    > just sentence those students to jail for life already Seems inefficient, exhile them to Somalia instead.
  - Khaine 5y ago
    The problem is keeping those kids in school ruins the education of all of the kids in that class. How is it fair to damage the potential of so many kids, because one kid is disruptive, and their parents don’t care.
    - pjerem 5y ago
      The options here are not binary. There are other possibilities than keeping them ruining the class or abandoning them. A lot of countries have dedicated schools for those children, so they damage nothing around them and can be treated individually. And in lot of cases, since it requires removing them from families where their problems comes, it’s a breadth of fresh air for them.
caseysoftware 5y ago
> When the public school system becomes insolvent, what’s your solution for those students? They just don’t get an education? Are they getting an education now? According to most metrics - including this article - more and more students are passed without meeting the requirements for their grade level.

by tw04 5y ago

throwaway894345 5y ago

Why should disruptive students be tolerated in public school classrooms? Does the disruptive student actually get an education simply by virtue of being in the classroom? He certainly drags his peers down, but how much is he actually educated in the process, and is that worth the harm he does his peers? > Vouchers are a great way to permanently cement the cradle to prison cycle. I could as easily say they are a way out of the cradle to prison cycle for many at risk youths.

mlyle 5y ago

Perhaps any voucher system could be calibrated to: A) allow some more students to go to private schools by providing a fraction of what would be spent on them, and B) increase remaining resources per-pupil in the public school system. Of course, it still takes thought to make sure that the public schools improve in this scenario, because they will also be fighting an adverse-selection headwind of being stuck with students from lower classes and those that the private schools don't want. But if you can shrink classes and cater classes to similar ability levels, I'd think this would win out.

bruce511 5y ago
I'm not sure your math works. If the goal of vouchers is to take the total education budget, divide it by the number of students, then disperse the pot equally. In other words is it simply a case of $10 000 per child per year, so here's a voucher for 10k, go wherever you like? There are no extra resources here for underperforming schools - in fact there are likely fewer resources. Public shools won't get smaller though, they'll just merge together to create fewer schools, and the bad teachers will go away. And perhaps therein lies the root of the resistance to vouchers. It starts to measure school, and by extension, teacher quality. And that's not a rabbit hole teacher unions want to go down.
- mlyle 5y ago
  > In other words is it simply a case of $10 000 per child per year, so here's a voucher for 10k, go wherever you like? When vouchers were proposed in California in 1993, it was to be half the amount spent by the state on each child for public education. In 2000, it was to be $4000/year, when the state spent about $7000/year per student. Of course, there's the big existing population in private schools that would also have been eligible for vouchers-- about 7%-- so these amounts probably still would drive down per-pupil spending in public schools. You'd need to roughly double private school enrollment to "break even" in per-pupil spending. I favor something like 20-33%-- that might reasonably be expected to both make it significantly easier for parents to send their children to private schools and increase resources per student in public schools.

nitrogen 5y ago

Vouchers are a great way to permanently cement the cradle to prison cycle. You don't solve a problem by making it worse. Making smart and/or motivated kids stay in the same classrooms as disruptive and demotivated kids just turns the motivated kids into more disruptive and demotivated kids. Right now it looks like we can choose between some people getting educated, and almost nobody getting educated because of the disruptive environment.

pdonis 5y ago

> what’s your solution for those students? They just don’t get an education? You want the brutal truth? Yes, that's exactly the solution. Want an education? Learn to behave in class. And note that this is the only workable answer even in public school systems that aren't insolvent. No amount of money can educate a kid who refuses to be educated.

pjerem 5y ago
> Learn to behave in class. Who’s the job to teach those kids how to behave in class ? Their parents ? And what do you do if their parents don’t care (which is the common case with those kids) ? What do you do if the student has undiagnosed mental illness ? Entire generations of misbehaved children were in fact suffering ADHD. How do you manage a misbehaving children that is bullied every single morning when he comes to school ? Not educating a kid is ruining its life and, since you speak with « brutal truth », yeah, just sentence those students to jail for life already, at least they’ll not have to struggle with hunger and homelessness during years.
- concordDance 5y ago
  > just sentence those students to jail for life already Seems inefficient, exhile them to Somalia instead.
- Khaine 5y ago
  The problem is keeping those kids in school ruins the education of all of the kids in that class. How is it fair to damage the potential of so many kids, because one kid is disruptive, and their parents don’t care.
  - pjerem 5y ago
    The options here are not binary. There are other possibilities than keeping them ruining the class or abandoning them. A lot of countries have dedicated schools for those children, so they damage nothing around them and can be treated individually. And in lot of cases, since it requires removing them from families where their problems comes, it’s a breadth of fresh air for them.

caseysoftware 5y ago

> When the public school system becomes insolvent, what’s your solution for those students? They just don’t get an education? Are they getting an education now? According to most metrics - including this article - more and more students are passed without meeting the requirements for their grade level.